Costco Wholesale Corp (COST) — Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you, Laurie, and good afternoon to everyone. I will start by stating that these discussions will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events, results and/or performance to differ materially from those indicated by such statements. The risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to those outlined in today's call, as well as other risks identified from time to time in the company's public statements and reports filed with the SEC. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made and the company does not undertake to update these statements, except as required by law. In today's press release, we reported operating results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2020, the 16 and 52 weeks ended August 30. Reported net income for the fourth quarter came in at $1.389 billion or $3.13 per diluted share as compared to $1.097 billion or $2.47 per diluted share last year in the fourth quarter. This year’s fourth quarter was negatively impacted by incremental expense related to COVID-19 premium wages and sanitation costs, totaling $281 million pretax or $0.47 a share, as well as a $36 million pre-tax charge or $0.06 per share related to early payment of $1.5 billion of debt. These items were partially offset by an $84 million pre-tax benefit or $0.15 a share for the partial reversal of reserve of $123 million pretax, $0.22 per diluted share related to our product tax assessment taken in the fourth quarter of last year. Net sales for the quarter increased 12.5% to $52.28 billion, up from $46.45 billion in the fourth quarter a year earlier. For the fiscal year in its entirety, fiscal 2020 came in at $163.22 billion, a 9.3% increase over the $149.35 billion in fiscal 2019. Comparable sales for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020 were as follows: On a reported basis for the 16 weeks, the U.S. was up 11%, excluding gas deflation and FX, the U.S. was up 13.6%. Canada reported 9.1% up, again ex-gas deflation and FX 12.6% up. Other international reported 16.1%, ex-gas deflation and FX, 18.8%, bringing the total company to a reported number of 11.4% comp and again ex-gas deflation and FX, up 14.1%. For the company, e-commerce was reported at 90.6% up, and ex-gas and FX – FX, 91.3% up. In terms of the fourth quarter comp sales metrics, foreign currencies relative to the U.S. dollar negatively impacted sales by about 50 basis points, and gasoline price deflation negatively impacted sales by approximately 220 basis points. Traffic or shopping frequency on a worldwide basis was down 1.2% during the fourth quarter and showed an increase of 1.2% in the U.S. Our average transaction or average basket size was up 12.7% during the fourth quarter, notwithstanding the negative impacts from gas deflation and FX which were included in that number. We’ve kept you up-to-date in our monthly sales calls on the impacts from the pandemic as we've been able to identify those. Overall merchandise sales in the core, core being food and sundries, hardlines, softlines and fresh, as well as pharmacy have all been strong, while sales in our ancillary, other ancillary, and travel businesses though now open have been soft. Next, moving down the income statement, membership fee income. We reported a fourth quarter membership fee income of $1.106 billion, up $56 million from $1.05 billion in the fourth quarter of 2019. The $56 million increase ex-FX would have been $60 million up. During the quarter we opened eight net new units and 13 for the entire fiscal year. In terms of renewal rates, at fourth quarter end our U.S. and Canada renewal rate remained at 91.0% and worldwide rate also remained at a similar number from a quarter ago at 88.4%. In terms of the number of members at Q4 end, both member households and card holders, total paid households at fourth quarter end was up – came in at 58.1 million and card holders 105.5 million. In the fourth quarter, we standardized the membership count methodology globally, which we had apparently done differently in different markets, North America versus others, and so that increase includes that slight adjustment. The change resulted in adding approximately 1.3 million paid members and 2.0 million card holders to our member base. So as an example, from Q3 to Q4 when we showed going from 55.8 million to 58.1 million or up 2.3 million, that 2.3 million increase includes the 1.3 million adjustment upwards. Similarly, the $3.7 million increase from the end of the third quarter to the fourth quarter, that 3.7 million increase includes 2.0 million of an adjustment. I'd like to note however that neither the membership fee income dollars nor the renewal rate calculations were affected by this adjustment. At fourth quarter end, paid executive memberships totaled 22.6 million, an increase of 765,000 during the 16 weeks since third quarter end. Our reported gross margin came in at 11.24%, which is an increase of 18 basis points from last year's fourth quarter gross margin of 11.06%. If we exclude gas deflation, the increase would have been a decrease of 4 basis points, and excluding some direct COVID expenses, it would have increased by 8 basis points. I have some numbers for you to note down. The first column will represent the fourth quarter as reported, while the second column will reflect the fourth quarter excluding gas deflation. In the first line item for core merchandise, we see that on a reported basis, it was up 101 basis points year-over-year, and up 82 basis points excluding gas deflation. The second line item, ancillary businesses, reported a decrease of 66 basis points, and without gas deflation, it decreased by 71 basis points. A 2% reward gave us minus 4 basis points and minus 2 basis points, while other categories reported minus 13 basis points in both cases. This brings the totals to an increase of 18 basis points as reported and a decrease of 4 basis points excluding gas deflation. The core merchandise component of gross margin was again higher by 101 basis points year-over-year and by 82 basis points higher excluding gas deflation. This shift from ancillary and other businesses to the core significantly impacted our results this quarter, leading to a higher contribution of total gross margin dollars from core operations compared to last year. Looking at the core merchandise categories in relation to only their own sales, so core-on-core if you will, margins year-over-year were up by 70 basis points. Fresh foods was the biggest driver up here with strong sales in fresh we benefited from efficiency gains in both labor productivity and significantly lower what we call D-and-D or damage and destroyed or product spoilage. Food and sundries, softlines, hardlines as well as fresh - as I mentioned, fresh foods already, but in addition, food and sundries, softlines and hardlines all had higher margins year-over-year in the quarter as well. Ancillary and other businesses gross margin again was lower by 66 basis points and 71 basis points ex-gas deflation. Most of our ancillary businesses were lower year-over-year with the most significant negative impact coming from gasoline and travel, which accounted for about three quarters of the decline. Next, on the income statement, pre-opening expense. That pre-opening expense last year in the fourth quarter was $41 million, this year in the fourth quarter was $15 million less coming in at $26 million. Last year in the fourth quarter we had 12 gross openings, 10 net and two relos, and that compares to 10 openings gross or 8 net in the fourth quarter this year. The big difference in those two numbers, this year's fourth quarter relates primarily to warehouses opened during the quarter, as well as warehouses scheduled to open in the first quarter. Last year's pre-opening included $12 million in pre-opening expenses related to our new poultry complex. All total reported operating income in Q4 increased 32%, coming in at $1.929 billion this year compared to $1.463 billion last year and it would be a slightly higher percent increase if you excluded the items that I had mentioned earlier.

Hi everyone. Hey Richard, my first question is how should we think about or how you are planning COVID costs for Q1 of the next fiscal year? And if I'm not mistaken, I thought that for this fourth quarter there was a range – I don't know if there was a range, but we were expecting them to be lower sequentially and I think they were pretty similar. So you mentioned the basics what it constituted, but can you talk about why?

Sure, as you may recall, on our first-quarter conference call we indicated that such types of costs in Q4 would be at least $100 million or over $100 million, and of course $281 million is over $100 million, but quite a bit larger. But the reality is, the biggest factor is we chose to continue at least for the time being the $2 an hour premium. That represents about $14 million a week. To date, we are doing that, and we've committed to doing that at least through, I believe the first eight weeks of this fiscal quarter, and again, we'll take that time and again. Our numbers have been very good, our employees are on the frontline, and so that – mind you, the fourth quarter was a 16-week quarter versus Q3, which is a 12-week quarter. So on a per week basis, it’s come down. There are other things that have been, that won’t be repeated in the first quarter at least. If you go back to the very beginning of time, for the first four to five weeks when we stopped doing food samples, we employed those third party employees ourselves. We paid our third party to have them help us in the warehouse, that was during those three to four weeks of craziness in late February through mid to late March when people were coming in and hoarding and what have you and that helped quite a bit. So there are some costs that I don't expect to be continued. The biggest component of course would be the $2 premium and we'll see. At this juncture, we’ve committed to our employees for the first 8 weeks of this quarter.

Okay, thanks for that. My follow-up, as you mentioned the holiday and I think you said, you're looking at it optimistically or favorable for now. Can you talk about, maybe a little more detail why? It seems like the results speak for themselves for now, but there could be a lot of change over the next couple of months, and has your customer diversified their basket with you know and you know you think you'll be able to retain them across more categories and keep trips as more retail gets their traffic back? Thanks.

Sure. Well look, I mean the main data points that we look at is how strong things have been in the last 3.5 months, 4 months. You know June, July, and August sales results which we've all shared with you guys. The trend in traffic has improved, so it's been positive the last couple of months instead of slightly or even more than slightly negative, going back to April and May, while the average ticket or average basket sizes continue to be relatively strong, so – and then probably if you ask what are some of the biggest surprises that we've had looking at the last three months of sales results compared to what we had expected a few months before that. I mean the big surprise is we expected you know fresh and food and sundries and paper goods and the like and health and beauty aids to be strong, particularly food because of the weakness, you know people dining out. But I think we're a little surprised by the strength in many of these discretionary, non-food categories, things for the house and big-ticket items. Again, not only furniture for that inside the house, but patio furniture; live goods were particularly strong. Where in some instances we had tried to cut back a few orders back in March and April for seasonal summer goods like patio furniture. Very quickly we were having to scramble for more of those. And so, so far so good. We recognized that people who are coming into Costco, we believe they feel safe given the safety protocols and the mask requirements. The sheer size of the building itself and the width of the aisles, so all of those things have helped us in that regard.

Thanks. Good evening guys. So my first question is, you know what's driving that strong core-on-core margin outside of the fresh category, which you know clearly would benefit from a shrink perspective. Is it sell-through and low clearance? Is it mix within the categories or is it something else?

Well, on fresh, it’s all the above. I mean its strong sales on a relatively higher initial margin business within our small confines of margin range. But then you know two components across the sales and fresh is labor productivity and spoilage. We don't have spoilage; we sell out, not literally but almost literally to the piece on these and things, and so you're not throwing stuff away, there is – it’s a great business from a gross margin dollar perspective given the sales strength in it. So that’s clearly the biggest thing. But again, if you look at the other three core areas, core-on-core, food and sundries, hardlines, and softlines, they're all up. But up, you know a nice amount but nothing like fresh foods, so that’s helped. Now mind you, other things have offset that and the sum of all those things is still a positive. The things that have offset it would be things like the fact that certain ancillary businesses which are higher margin businesses were closed for a 12 to 16 week period. Our food court of course has been limited in what we do there. We took out all the tables, we’ve limited the product offerings. Travel which is, you know while a small business is an extreme example of high margin, many items in travel is just a brokerage fee, almost sales minus no-cost of sales equal gross margin if you will, is the markup or the commission on some of that stuff, a portion of that. So you know those things have calmed down, but the sum of all those negatives are outweighed by the overall strength in core merchandise sales and pharmacy, pharmacy’s been relatively strong too.

Hey, good afternoon. I’m curious Richard, how you are thinking about the recovery of your gasoline business, particularly from a gallons perspective. And then I guess how this interplay is holding back the traffic into your stores. It’s clearly getting better, but you know being impacted a little bit by the gas business.

Well, I don't know exactly. I haven't seen numbers in the last week or two, but I believe our call it 10% negative gallon comp is still way better than the U.S. as a whole – the U.S. gasoline industry as a whole. And so, but you know we’d rather have plus-10 to minus-10. The fact is that people are coming in less, but they are buying more each time and the sum of those two things as we've shown here, we used to enjoy a 5% to 8% comps pre-COVID on a regular basis and the last three months we've enjoyed 14% if you will. And so overall we'll take that, but it’s got to be a small impact still.

Hi, thanks very much. I guess first question was just on the $2 premium. I guess the real question is, I mean I know you called out the eight weeks, but would it be more prudent as we kind of model this to just kind of think that that's more or less the new norm, meaning $14 million a week is kind of what we should add on, on an ongoing basis. It just seems that, it's hard to take something like that away once you've offered it. But just thought on that?

I don't think it’s completely hard to take away. We communicate via our COO and our Head of HR to our employees. We've done that and we've continued to extend it, but saying this will be it, and then we’ve added a little more. Well, I think we’ll see. I think some will – I think it may be hard but not impossible and we want to make sure we communicate to our employees of why we're doing it and we'll just have to wait and see, Karen.

Hi, thank you. Richard, on the e-commerce frontier it's been really impressive what you've done. What is some of the lower hanging fruit that you see had there, and also if you could brief us on the penetration now and how you might see that step change and where that will head in the future?

Well, I mean the main lower penetration things are if you go back three or four years ago, I don't think we had good email addresses for much more than a third of our member base, we didn't focus on that kind of stuff. Today we have well over 60% and growing. We now require you when you sign up – and more members are signing up online than in store in general anyway. When you sign up, you sign up with an email address. So we’re doing a lot more to collect and gather those email addresses and then communicating with them more often, so that's probably the single biggest low hanging fruit. The other thing is we feel that we've been able to use, you know emails if you will not only to drive e-commerce special promotions, but also in-store special promotions as well; the COVID, you know we were pleasantly surprised by just a sheer increase in people using same-day fresh. You know anecdotally I can’t tell you how many people have mentioned to me how they love it and that means they may very well be shopping same-day fresh or same-day whatever from their local supermarket as well. But we've got a lot of great items on there and it's hitting a cord.